Army Psy Ops Units Targeted American Senators 391
Weezul writes "The US Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in 'psychological operations' to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war. An officer who tried to stop the operation was railroaded by military investigators. (see also the Hatch Act of 1939)."
Too late (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too late (Score:5, Insightful)
We gave up any meaningful right when we signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, & any remaining freedoms with the PATRIOT Act of 2001, so what say you, puny civilians?
Holy cow are you people starting to sound like broken records. Is this the answer to all questions? The Federal Reserve Act?! What is wrong with our schools?
Re:Too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too late (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Too late (Score:5, Funny)
"...invade the land of the sand people"
The Sand People are easily startled but they'll soon be back, and in greater numbers. Take that rich elite!
Re:Too late (Score:5, Funny)
Holy cow are you people starting to sound like broken records. Is this the answer to all questions? The Federal Reserve Act?! What is wrong with our schools?
The US school system used to be one of the best. But it was never the same after the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
Re:Too late (Score:4, Informative)
I managed not to snort while laughing, but it took effort.
Re:Too late (Score:5, Funny)
It created our central banking system. The fact that every other civilized country on Earth has a similar system only makes it more sinister in the eyes of our lunatic fringe.
Anytime someone utters the words "Federal Reserve Act of 1913", it's 50-50 odds what happens next. Half the time they'll follow it up by declaring that income taxes are invalid, money is only money if it's backed by gold, and fluoride treated water is a government mind control tool. The other half of the time they'll just hole up in their fortified compound and start shooting.
Re:Too late (Score:4, Funny)
It's um, a lunatic thing. What you have to understand about USAians, it that we're all a bit kooky. Even me. Even Canadians who have visited Niagara Falls have gone away feeling a bit fuzzy for a few days.
The first key USAian eccentricity is that we refuse to allow anyone to tell us what to do. Ever. If we are asked to breathe deeply by our doctors during an exam our first instinct is to hold our breath. Our second instinct is to scan those diplomas on his walls to see if any are from Moscow.
Our second eccentricity is to believe that everything used to be better. We all know that the Pilgrims had much better smart phones than we have today. They also lived in harmony with their indigenous neighbors as well, teaching them how to cook turkeys. But because those indigenous persons weren't real Americans they all turned violent in their attempt to impose their International Communist Conspiracy on us.
Our third eccentricity is that we think we're the best country on earth. That means in every single possible way. Any other democracy is not as democratic as ours. People from Switzerland who claim to be happy are not as happy as they could be if only they were living in Burbank and paying fewer taxes. All good ideas come from the US.
Our fourth eccentricity is that we don't let logic get in our way.
So combine all that, and it's clear why the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was a communist plot. We used to have a gold standard, and because it was older it was clearly better than the new way. The Federal Reserve bank has the power to tell other banks what to do, and that's clearly not right and un-democratic. The fact that other countries have central banks is no consolation, because even our lousy banking system is better than the corrupt terrorist run banks everywhere else.
We (Score:2, Insightful)
Please stop using the term "we" to describe the actions of the elite few at the top of the pyramid.
Re:Too late (Score:5, Insightful)
uhhh... i hear you on the patriot act, but you do realize that the fed was brought into existence not because of some retarded senator palpatine style freedom destroying plot, which seems to be the way you think, but because people were sick of banking panic after banking panic laying waste to the economy and people's lives and financial well being:
http://history1800s.about.com/od/thegildedage/a/financialpanics.htm [about.com]
and although i'd really love to hear your john birch society conspiracy theories about the fed, i'm sorry, but i have an appointment with economic reality and psychological stability that i really must keep, adieu
Re:Too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too late (Score:5, Insightful)
yes, so we got the FDIC added, along with the glass steagall act banking protections... which were underminded starting with reagan, legislated around further through clinton, and gutted under bush ii (hey SEC: stop doing your job, there's no guy pulling off a giant ponzi scheme, naaah). leading to, surprise! the crash of 2008
anything else i can help you with?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Too late (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Too late (Score:5, Informative)
No, he's saying that the laws as originally legislated would have prevented a lot of the recent banking problems. It wasn't until people disobeyed them, legislated additional loopholes, or decided not to enforce it that things started to really spiral out of control.
Or, that's what I believe he's saying.
Re:Too late (Score:5, Informative)
If it's not too much to ask, could you please elaborate a little so kiddies like me can understand what's going on? I'm trying to go through it but it's a lot to work with for someone who started with Clinton.
In order to form your own opinions, I would suggest you read at least a putatively objective account of the legislation being referenced. Biased explanations by those who are already pushing their point are unlikely to help you in this regard. Reading these will give you a start, but you had better be prepared to develop your own ideas about economic theory and political theory as well. Despite economists' belief that they study a science, and the words "political science" used by those who study political theory, neither resembles more traditional scientific disciplines. Both are more about pushing theories than proving them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass–Steagall_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garn–St._Germain_Depository_Institutions_Act
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Something to note, While the fed was crated before the depression, The Fed was significantly weaker origination than it was today. It wasn't until after the crash that the treasury department was banned from touching monetary policy.
Anyhow it seems like the FDIC really has made good old fashioned bank runs a thing
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Re:Too late (Score:5, Funny)
people were sick of banking panic after banking panic laying waste to the economy and people's lives and financial well being:
Good thing they put a stop to that, then!
Re:Too late (Score:5, Interesting)
Thus far in my life, I have never gone to the bank and asked to make a withdrawal of money I had in account, and been denied. I think this is nearly unheard of. My great-grandmother told us some different stories (before and after 1913). My parents do not in their lifetime recall having been denied, nor did my grandmother who was born somewhere around 1928 (though during her early years it must certainly have been common, she would have been too young to recall it).
In my lifetime I recall 3 major economic downturns, each worse than the last, during which I personally experienced temporary devaluation of my investments, and generally slower growth than I might have expected based on prior data. In spite of this, all my investments are worth more than what I put in to them, even right now, though I do expect when dealing with "investments" that I may lose money. If I didn't want to lose money I wouldn't "invest", I'd put it in an insured bank account, or not trusting that, buy non-perishable commodities and try to hide them around the house.
So though I suspect your comment was snarky, I think we did put a stop to that. The question is have we let enough safeguards erode such that our overall economic stability might return us to my great-grandmothers time of bank panics and shortages.
Re:Too late (Score:5, Interesting)
Except we had the First Bank of the United States and the Second Bank of the United States, which were essentially central banks and they didn't help.
And the Fed not only didn't help avert the Great Depression, they admitted to making it worse thru over contraction of the monetary supply.
Considering the number of recessions, the modern name for bank panic, after the creation of the Fed, what exactly is your argument? They certainly haven't either slowed down or flattened out the severity of any, including the current, the ones in the 1980s and all the ones past.
Re:Too late (Score:5, Insightful)
My point was, the evidence of the past 2 centuries does not bear out your argument. The advent of central banking in the United States has not significantly reduced the number of nor severity of economic "panics".
You linked to a list of bank panics of the 19th Century, but neglected to differentiate between the ones that occurred with and without central banks. You also didn't compare and contrast to a list of bank panics in the 20th Century, after the creation of the Fed.
You said "this was bad" and "here is the fix", but didn't actually look at any evidence of whether or not the fix WORKED. And in this last post you resort to ad hominem attacks.
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No, not really. You sound young. :-)
The recessions of the 1970s and 1980s were fairly painful to people at the time. Add in the oil crisis of the the 1970s and it wasn't pretty at all. There were plenty of others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
While Wikipedia splits them at 1930, if you want to compare the results of the Fed's presence, start the split at 1913.
It is hard to make and apples-to-apples comparison by straight numbers, because of the differences in the way
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Well, having been born in 1961 I remember the slump of the late 70s well, and it *was* the fed's fault... but you have to look at the alternative. Inflation hit 14.76% in March of 1980. So Paul Volcker put the brakes on the money supply by raising interest rates from 11% to 20%.
This was extremely unpopular because of the economic pain it caused, and if Congress were in charge it would never have happened. But Volcker was trying to prevent the country from slipping into hyperinflation. This set the stage
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that's economic reality pretty much agreed upon by anyone with an IQ above 100 and an average education
The set of people with IQ greater than 100 is 50% of the population by definition. When qualified by "average education", the set drops to less than 50%. But the structure of your sentence implies they hold a majority opinion.
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Re:Too late (Score:4, Insightful)
The Fed shares only a small part of the blame.
1. Dual mandate of price stability and employment--came from Congress, and pulled the Fed out of areas where it's equipped to act.
2. A more regressive tax structure, started under Reagan.
3. Massive, unnecessary wars started by GWB.
4. Well meaning, but in retrospect ill advised government efforts to encourage home ownership. Also not something the Fed did.
If you're blaming the Fed, it's like blaming the tail for wagging the dog. Some people even go so far as to argue that the ability to print money causes wars. If you look at history, you see that the war comes first, then they turn to money printing. The gold standard does NOT keep people honest, honestly! As soon as government has a reason, they immediately trash the gold standard. As one author put it, "the gold standard is as good as the paper it's written on".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Pssst...
All money was created out of thin air. (well, out of a cotton/paper pulp, ink, and some printing presses, but I digress)
All money is only worth what other people are willing to give you in exchange for it. All gold is only worth what other people are willing to give you in exchange for it. What's the difference? With gold-backed currency, people are trading pieces of paper that they believe might be able to get them some amount of gold to other people who value the piece of paper that may be wor
Re: (Score:2)
One thought that crossed my mind as I was reading this thread. Our Supreme Court writes up their rulings along with their lines of thought, their analysis, the precedents, etc. They do so in great detail. They do so with in-depth analysis. Why not require all elected officials that are responsible for passing laws that vote yes or no, and those that abstain, including the President, to write up their decisions in as an in-depth way as the Supreme Court. And this information should be published in the s
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We gave up any meaningful right when we signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, & any remaining freedoms with the PATRIOT Act of 2001, so what say you, puny civilians?
What's really interesting here, is that we're not seeing the usual Big Gov't vs puny civilian story, but rather Big Gov't division A vs. Big Government to such an extent. It's one thing for, say, Bernanke to elaborate some nice rhetoric to the congress in order to explain his printing money "for the good of society". But to amass a small psychological army (no pun intended) to purposefully brainwash the congress? Now that's scary....
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Re:Too late (Score:5, Funny)
I believe his exact argument was "KaChing!" with some fist pumping gestures.
Re: (Score:2)
Precisely. What would our founding fathers, specifically Alexander Hamilton, who wrote at length on this subject, have thought of our powerful central bank?
Ouch! I've been shot!
Lobbyists? (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically the army used its soldiers as lobbyists?
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That is an interesting point. These troops are experts at getting people to see what you want to see. To put it another way they are experts at being persuasive. They sound more like really good public affairs officers than anything else.
So the question is this.
If they where not ordered to lie to the senators.
or
If they didn't drug them, deprive them of sleep, or blast them with heavy metal music 24/7.
Was there any wrong doing?
Simple answer seems yes since he Officer in question asked the JAG and got an ans
Starship Troopers (Score:3)
Psy-Ops? Isn't that what Dr Horrible's, (I mean Neil Patrick Harris) character was assigned to in Starship Troopers?
Re:Starship Troopers (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it is more like the character George Clooney played in The Men Who Stare at Goats [imdb.com].
Re:Starship Troopers (Score:5, Funny)
I think it is more like the character George Clooney played in The Men Who Stare at Goats [imdb.com].
That movie was so much better than The Men Who Stare at Goatse. I really need to pay better attention when picking a theater.
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Coffee keyboard spill on isle 5.
hilarious.
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Isn't that robocop not SST?
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Nope, definitely Starship Troopers. The themes and general mock-propaganda were very similar between the two films however.
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No rule of law in America (Score:4)
What are the chances anyone will serve time for this crime?
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It depends on whether it can be blamed on someone who sounds important but doesn't really do anything any more. In politics, it is better to seem like you're doing something than to actually do something.
Re:No rule of law in America (Score:5, Insightful)
RTFA. This was more than looking up voting records. They were targeting their fellow Americans with techniques designed specifically for use against the enemy, which is prohibited by law for good reason. It's no different than if a soldier pointed his rifle at a visiting politician and said, "Senator, vote for the new defense appropriations bill or I'll blow your head off."
You may be right that it's the same thing any business or news organization would do. The difference is that We, the People, do not invest in Microsoft or the New York Times the authority to kill people in our name. The rules are different for the military, and they damn well should be. If you want to live in a country where the military runs like a business, there are plenty of places in the world for you to try. Most of them aren't very pleasant places to live. Why don't you give it a shot, so to speak -- the experience will be very educational for you, if you survive it.
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Every large bureaucracy in the government has a public affairs arm whose job it is to convince the public and policy makers that their bureau is important and deserves some pie.
My wife, as part of her job as a wildlife biologist, is to spend time indoctrinating school children in the importance of wildlife and natural habitat.
She may not be formally trained in psyops, but being a woman she is naturally predisposed to mental manipulation. This isn't really any different.
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Again, please RTFA. I really, really doubt your wife uses any tactics on schoolkids like those the Army was using on visiting politicians.
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The article was pretty light on details about what the tactics were.
Re:No rule of law in America (Score:5, Informative)
Having spent some time in the Army, and having had some exposure to PsyOps attempts... I have concluded that PsyOps earns its stripes at the strategic level, not the tactical level: they don't really mold minds on an individual basis.
Steering whole units OVER TIME with ruses, not a room-full of VIPs in a few afternoons with jedi mind tricks.
If you really think that PsyOps is some jedi mind trick bullshit, you've watched too many movies. At best it is some pogues in the woods with loudspeakers on thier HMMWV trying to make the enemy scouts tell their commander that they hear tanks when there really aren't any.
These aren't psychologists, hypnotists, or jedis... they operate based on very basic ideas and techniques. And already /. is filled with comments from pasty basement dwellers who love Clancy books and SciFi movies, commenting with wild-eyed amazement at the thought of such amazing intrigue.
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Your wife exploits traumatic events in peoples' pasts in order to get what she wants?
She uses bribes and opperatives to alter the context of messages in the social circles of the people who have things she wants?
She creates a network of half truths, lies, and bias to create scenarios which will motivate a person to do something that they would oppose under normal circumstances?
Your wife partakes in antivities that are federally barred both by law, statute, and budget?
If so, man, I'd think you should do some
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Every large bureaucracy in the government has a public affairs arm whose job it is to convince the public and policy makers that their bureau is important and deserves some pie.
That is true, but that is not PsyOps' job. The Army has its own Public Affairs office that is for manipulating its own citizens in, what we hope are, completely different manners.
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"My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave," says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. "I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line."
Sounds a little bit more ominous than tweaking a Powerpoint presentation, especially that bit about being prohibited from doing that to our own people.
This article is psy-ops (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This article is psy-ops (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it's more like conning than selling. Do you actually think that they are required to tell the truth when coercing them? Also, one of the biggest proponents of the 11 billion that the country has pissed away was influenced by the unit, so I'm assuming it may have had at least a little impact. What's also scummy about this is that he explicitly used a unit meant only for the enemy on US citizens (which is EXACTLY what the law says NOT to do). On top of that, in order to can his case, they ruined the career of a female major under him, saying she had inappropriate relationships with him.
Hatch Act? (Score:2)
Did we not read the linked Wiki page? Applicability to U.S. military personnel [wikipedia.org].
However there is an order basically stating the same thing. I don't know if this means the military can cheat their own order, though.
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"The Hatch Act of 1939 is a United States federal law whose main provision is to prohibit federal employees (civil servants) from engaging in partisan political activity."
I think it's a little bit of a stretch to call "requesting more resources to do your job" a "partisan political activity." The things that usually fall under that are stuff like campaigning for a presidential candidate or something.
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You mean lobbying? (Score:3)
According to Holmes, the general wanted the IO team to provide a "deeper analysis of pressure points we could use to leverage the delegation for more funds." The general’s chief of staff also asked Holmes how Caldwell could secretly manipulate the U.S. lawmakers without their knowledge. "How do we get these guys to give us more people?" he demanded. "What do I have to plant inside their heads?"
It might not be ethical, but how is this different than organizations that lobby congress? This seems blown up. Would it be ok if instead of being called "Psy-Ops" they were called "Public Relations?"
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See, the fact that they call it "Psy-Ops" instead of "Public Relations" is a pretty good argument that they're not very good at it.
Re:You mean lobbying? (Score:4, Interesting)
It might not be ethical, but how is this different than organizations that lobby congress?
Well, in terms of being unethical, it clearly isn't any different from organizations that lobby congress. I'm not sure how that makes it OK.
Your honor, I realize I killed that guy in cold blood, but people with more influence than I get off on technicalities all the time, so you should let me go too...
However, if it makes you feel better, I'm fine with banning lobbyists as well.
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Generally speaking, the purpose of PR is to make people feel good about an organization. Psy-Ops does that kind of work ("winning hearts and minds," to use a phrase popular in a previous failed guerilla war) but they also try to scare the shit out of other people. The general idea is to convince neutrals that you'd make a good ally, allies that you're steadfast and capable, and enemies that you're invincible and the best thing they can do is surrender right now. That last bit may be the ultimate goal of
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Do you really think that it's appropriate for the military to lobby congress with public funds in what is supposed to be a civilian democracy?
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It might not be ethical, but how is this different than organizations that lobby congress? This seems blown up. Would it be ok if instead of being called "Psy-Ops" they were called "Public Relations?"
I would suggest that a military Psy-Ops organization's list of available actions should include Lying. A military PR group interacting with the the sponsoring populace and governing body should not be allowed to lie.
The reason being that the military is civilian controlled. They don't get to set policy. Atte
Civil Rule (Score:4, Interesting)
The civilian government is defined by three co-equal branches of government, which, many forget, incudes the judiciary who have all rights to govern as any other branch of government. They may not be directly elected, but so was the case of the executive branch when the Constitution was written.
The problem is that the Military has become too big for it's britches. They think they matter, they think that they can throw temper tantrums and not follow orders and directive from the civil rulers simply because they do not want to. They think that somehow their confort is more important than the comfort of the taxpayers that fund their livelihoods. Sure they have a tough and dangerous jobs, but they made a choice. Many of us had made equivalent choices. The military is voluntary, if one person is not willing to the job they are paid to do, then some one else will. Hell, we have people who are willing to earn the money they are paid but are prevented to do so due to bigotry.
We have to fund the people who protect us. The fact that we have a tax cut exactly when our solider were dying due to lack of equipment is something this country is never going to live down. Anyone who voted to send our troops into battle then voted to not fund them has an issue with basic human decency. OTOH, the military has to respect civilian rule even if they don't agree with it. They do not have the freedoms of a civilians to effect rules.
Oh noes! (Score:2, Insightful)
Jones: Why me? I'm psy-ops, and I'm not supposed to do any Jedi mind tricks on US citizens.
Officer: You also happen to be the most articulate person in the unit, and have an actual understanding of how to communicate a position based on local experience and observations, and even know what the word "rhetoric" actually means when someone wants to know your boiled-down opi
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The sad part is that this sort of investigative journalism should be getting published by the New York Times or Washington Post or CNN. Instead, it's been relegated to places like Rolling Stone.
It's also fair to say that anyone who's been reading Matt Taibbi's coverage of the financial crisis in Rolling Stone has at least as good a picture of what's really going on as somebody who listens to Larry Kudlow on CNBC.
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Of course the military wants more soldiers and money, that's the nature of the forces. However, what's at issue here is were these soldiers lying to the Congress in order to get their way?
I don't find it that difficult to believe that when Senators showed up, the military gives them a finely crafted Potemkin village of happy Afghans and maps showing the Taliban all in retreat. Anyone who watches BBC or Al Jazeera English [aljazeera.net] knows that's just not the case.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Informative)
But that's not how it went. The Psy-Ops guys were asked to study the dignitaries in order to find our how to manipulate them, and to sit in on meetings with them without identifying their role. They weren't asked to show off how articulate they were.
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Officer: You also happen to be the most articulate person in the unit, and have an actual understanding of how to communicate a position based on local experience and observations, and even know what the word "rhetoric" actually means when someone wants to know your boiled-down opinion about a complex, topic.
That's what the installation public affairs officer is for.
Well, I guess ... (Score:2)
I'm Impressed, Weezul (Score:2)
If anyone had ever asked me "what is the magazine least likely to be read by a Slashdotter" is, I think I'd have picked Rolling Stone.
And this is different from...? (Score:2)
How is this any different from a commander including a room full of water-damaged equipment during a congressional visit, to highlight the need for funding roof repairs in a critical facility that is too old to get maintenance/upkeep funding through normal procedures?
Really, the military can't fund or equip itself so whenever the people who DO fund and equip the military come by for a visit, you can bet your ass that the military commander will attempt to tell his story to the visitors. This is the way it
How is this news?? (Score:4, Interesting)
This PsyOps division engaged in heavy persuasion sounds like what everyone else does everyday. Lets see...
"compiling detailed profiles of the VIPs, including their voting records, their likes and dislikes, and their "hot-button issues."
Okay. To some degree this is what a lot of people do before a romantic date. You try to find out what the other person will like by checking their Facebook page, checking with mutual friends, and maybe floating a few vague questions to the date. People going to a job interview does their back research on the president of the company, the company history, and any industry issues so that they appear professional, competent, and knowledgeable. How can it be wrong for the army to do the same commonsense action?
"deeper analysis of pressure points we could use to leverage the delegation for more funds." "What do I have to plant inside their heads?"
So what? This is called management. Anyone that has ever been given a job performance warning or given one to an employee has had the same thing. The message is clear. You will do better. You will work harder, longer, and smile while doing it. You are lucky to have a job, and we can fire you. The police are training on how to give clear voice commands to keep order. Mothers constantly work with just this technique to train their children not to do what's fun like hurting the family pet, breaking furniture, and generally dangerous behavior (no, you WILL NOT jump backwards down the stairs. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!? Good. Now TELL ME what you WON'T DO.) Is the article seriously expect the army not to use the most basic management techniques?
"CIA to put together background dossiers on congressional opponents"
Yep, and employers routinely run background checks on all job candidates. Drunk driving, sorry, no job for you. Bad debt means you are irresponsible and untrustworthy.
"exploiting new technologies like blogging and Wikipedia"
Companies now monitor all social media sites. I know of one that has software key loggers on all company computers to get the blog passwords and monitor the content. Any negative posting about the company and the person is fired within three weeks for general performance issues (including the use of non-work related blogging on company computers). This is not illegal. Should it be illegal for the army to do the same?
"Holmes learned that he was the subject of an investigation, called an AR 15-6"
Yep, and hopefully Holmes will be thrown in prison. In business this is called either insider trading (in finance), or ethical misuse of corporate information (business). It is a felony and there have been a lot of people that have gone to jail for it (ex, Martha Stewart). In the military Bradley Manning (Wiki leaks) has been facing military court martial for basically the same thing. Apparently Holmes feels he special and that he is immune from investigation for exposing serious military intelligence.
"After being reprimanded, Holmes and his team were essentially ignored for the rest of their tours in Afghanistan"
Yes, that sounds about right. Who in their right minds pays attention to a general screw-up? In relationships that break up the people remain separated and generally ignore each other afterward. People that are fired are escorted carefully to the door and then forgotten (and replaced). If you switch from one bank to a different bank you don't keep going to the previous bank to make sure they are doing okay. This is only common sense. Holmes is indeed very special.
"there is no way to tell what, if any, influence it had on American policy."
Little to none, certainly not illegal or even questionable.
Waves hand through the air... (Score:3)
Gross Inaccuracies (Score:3)
He's a Forward Support Team Chief from the 71st Theater Information Operations Group. The FST is NOT a "PSY-OPS" (sic) team. The General simply asked him to prepare some background information on people who were visiting-- there's nothing illegal about that, and he should've done his job.
Rolling Stones uses ridiculous language and implications to create the illusion that "PSYOP" are a bunch of Sith who go around using Jedi Mind Powers on the weak-willed to compel them to do their bidding. Here's what they actually do: drive around in Hummer, play loud music, and say really mean things about the Taliban's moms on a loudspeaker.
So exactly what would a PSYOP operation on a congressman entail? A couple tactical speaker monkeys following them around in a Hummer, playing loud music, and insulting their mother. It's not the kind of thing that gets you more funding, eh?
Re:Wrong but right (Score:4, Insightful)
The only morally correct way to convince someone of your position is to present the evidence (and the rationale).
Any manipulation beyond that is a deliberate attempt to derail the other person's rationality and force them into making a decision that might not be in properly alignment with their loyalties and interests, and hence is potentially harmful to the person and hence morally wrong.
PsyOps is a weapon, and has the same moral status as any weapon. Firing weapons at our own senators is also morally wrong.
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The only morally correct way to convince someone of your position is to present the evidence (and the rationale).
What if the other person has compromised rationality and/or skewed priorities and interests. If they are unwilling or unable to act rationally, or they have disordered interests, is it better to act "morally correct" and unecessarily put the lives of your men at risk, or manipulate their compromised rationality in order to secure the optimal outcome for the men on the front lines?
It's a question of one man's (potentially-compromised) rationality versus hundreds or more men's lives. And remember that to
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What if the other person has compromised rationality and/or skewed priorities and interests. If they are unwilling or unable to act rationally, or they have disordered interests, is it better to act "morally correct" and unecessarily put the lives of your men at risk, or manipulate their compromised rationality in order to secure the optimal outcome for the men on the front lines?
Saying "it's okay as long as the other person has skewed priorities and ionterests" is equivalent to saying "it's okay whenever y
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Well, first, my argument was against the simplified stance of "the only moral action is..." Secondly, I didn't say "it's OK if you THINK the other person has skewed priorities," I asked "is it OK if the other person HAS skewed priorities?" The difference is subtle, but it's possible to concieve of objectively skewed priorities ("so a few million people die; look at all the money I'm making!").
And again, my point is less about the morality of this situation and more about the validity of the "the only mo
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The only morally correct way to convince someone of your position is to present the evidence (and the rationale).
What if the other person has compromised rationality and/or skewed priorities and interests. If they are unwilling or unable to act rationally, or they have disordered interests, is it better to act "morally correct" and unecessarily put the lives of your men at risk, or manipulate their compromised rationality in order to secure the optimal outcome for the men on the front lines?
It's a question of one man's (potentially-compromised) rationality versus hundreds or more men's lives. And remember that to "target" is the one who put those men on the battlefield in the first place.
Good point. We are talking about politicians here.
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And yet lawyers fire these weapons at innocent jury members every day.
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Psy-ops isn't a weapon in the sense of an assault rifle or an 155mm gun, its use should not be considered equivalent.
That said, using Psy-ops on American citizens is *illegal* and as such, it doesn't matter whether it involves shooting the targets or giving them hookers, a suitcase of cash and free ice cream for a year, it is not allowed. Refusing an illegal order is the responsibility of an American soldier.
If indeed these orders were issued, refused, and then the subordinates were punished, the commander
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Any manipulation beyond that is a deliberate attempt to derail the other person's rationality and force them into making a decision that might not be in properly alignment with their loyalties and interests, and hence is potentially harmful to the person and hence morally wrong.
Depends on your definition of morality. I like Sam Harris' definition of morality [scientificamerican.com], which I will summarize as that which leads to increased well-being of the most people, while at the same time increasing cooperation between them.
Re:Wrong but right (Score:4, Insightful)
So you do that and now there are less resources for some other commander and so his men die instead. Since you subverted the rational decision making process there were more total deaths since resources were not allocated optimally. Congratulations you killed bunch of Americans because you know best.
Actually why bother with the government at all? You're the commander the soldiers follow your orders - just a quick overthrow of the elected government and you can just allocate the resources as you see fit - this if clearly a good thing, since you know best.
Re:Wrong but right (Score:5, Insightful)
That slope is very slippery.
As convinced as you are that your position is the correct one, it is always possible that you are simply mistaken. In that case, someone else's objective position might save a lot of people from the bad consequences of your mistake. That is one reason why brainwashing (or equivalent) is morally wrong....you might force someone to agree with you when you should have been disagreed with.
If you can't convince your audience via reason and evidence, then you don't deserve their agreement.
Of course......if our senetors are actully outright corrupt then they should be overthrown....though that is a different situation entirely.
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Getting the mission done with as few deaths as possible is the morally right thing for a commander to do.
"The mission" did not spring into being as a pure goal with its raison d'etre being its own existence in some bizarre circular logic. Tasks are assigned by higher ups to achieve the ends those higher-ups designate. If the people charged with carrying it out then turn on the people who give them their directives and try to manipulate them into changing parameters, then they're no longer fulfilling the implicit directive of carrying out their superiors' decisions, they're trying to alter their superiors' deci
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Getting the mission done with as few deaths as possible is the morally right thing for a commander to do.
If there is a choice to be made between manipulating senators, and getting your people killed, I'd choose manipulating congressmen any time.
Among other things, you're presenting us with a false dilemma, are you not? That your only two choices are manipulation of your leaders or extra deaths among your people?
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Maybe getting the mission done "with as few deaths as possible is the morally right thing to do", maybe "refusing to follow orders" is morally right thing to do (such as the military refusing to fire on defenseless civilians), maybe "doing the best with what we have" is the morally right thing to do.
Whatever the situation, manipulating your superiors and attempting to subvert their ability to make rational choices is a very bad long term strategy. There's a significant chance the mission will be hurt by th
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Hi, I spent four years in the military.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned is how to get things accomplished despite an overwhelming bureaucracy. It's necessary to manipulate the system just to get your job done sometimes, and it doesn't surprise me at all that this extends to the upper echelons of the military.
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I see you've studied Machiavelli well.
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He must be one of those soldiers recruited to psy op the visiting Senators.
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